Howling Halls

Howling Marauders

Howling Halls is the abode of werewolves, dire wolves, normal hounds and slave pens holdings humanoid food stock. One unit of this place are the Howling Marauders. They act as bandits during the day and beastly predators at night. Much of their activity is focused on the heavy traffic coming and going from the Shadow Rift.

Howling Halls is a mighty fortress, constructed long ago by the Umahanbad. They named the place Bazundabil, building it over a very rich silver mine. To get this ore back to the markets of Naram-Gunal, caravans had to travel though the deeps woodlands of Singarban and Maegorion. This was a hazardous road to travel with frequent attacks by packs of wolves and leucrotta. The latter of these are descendants of abyssal-born hounds that fought alongside Demogorgon's armies in the Demon Spawn War. To cull this population, hunting parties were sent out to reduce the wolf and demon dog population. The hunters were overzealous, soon forming hunting lodges, and doing it for sport rather than predator management. The god Silvanus took affront to this and in violation of the rules of The Balance, gifted some of the wolves with the curse of lycanthropy. After a decade, werewolves were running amok in the forest and infiltrating Bazundabil. On 19 Lunar 1118, a rare event happened when all of Bal-Kriav's moons were in full phase. The werewolves powered by four full moons, were unstoppable. Bazundabil fell to the hunger of werewolves and ever since has remained in their control.

Today, Howling Halls is manned by a crack garrison of lycanthropes and dire beast pets. A number of shadow giants, acting as assassins and spies, serve the beastly leaders of this place. Numerous caves and hideouts are located in the rocky slopes surrounding the Howling Halls. The more savage and reckless werewolves and bandit forces live in these places.

Anglor Hellion

Anglor Hellion

This pearl colored walled and aquamarine domed bastion sits half-submerged in the waters of lake Lethiel. It was built in the Second Kizan War as a counter to the increasing threat posed by Geb's Chosen. Anglor Hellion has watery passages and underwater gates for its aquatic inhabitants. There is no access to the place by land. When boats arrive, travelers and supplies are raised to the entry-ways on steam powered elevators. For the help of Anglor Hellion's first lord in the Second Kizan War, these steam engines were gifted to them from the people of Rumaktharga,

Anglor Hellion is the regional church for followers of Lokestant. She was the first lord of Anglor Hellion. Construction on the first church to her began when she was elevated to godhood on 22 Bliss 1335. This church is at the heart of Anglor Hellion and like her other churches a waterfall serves as the altar.

Some of Anglor Hellion's most powerful guardians are water elementals and water weirds. Some of these creatures are leftovers from the re-routing of the river Guirfeint. As it was too much trouble to round them up and send them back to Chaos, they were left in the lake. During times of trouble, be it hostiles or natural like forest fires, they are either hired or convinced by Anglor Hellion's priests to give aid.

Witch Pipe

Witch Pipe

Witch Pipe is an active volcano sited along the eastern slopes of the Sournbracks. Like most volcanoes it begins somewhere in the deeps of the Underdark. Witch Pipe is nothing more than a cone, or pipe, in the Underdark region Phangul. It spews no lava in this region, but does warm up the waters of the Heliotrope Sea. In some areas near where it touches the sea, water seeping into pockets turns into jets of steam or pools of boiling water.

On the surface, a common misconception is that Witch Pipe is named for the Witch Horde or the many witches among the area's Theegans. The truth of the naming was that in the Horgon Era this volcano was the abode of a powerful fire troll shaman named Vuzara. As a mortal, she ruled for three decades, putting large tracts of Skycius under iron rule. Once she started getting old, Vuzara became a lich. It is thought that she learned how to do this from a set of scrolls or books plundered from what was then the ruins of Incubus. As an undead shaman, Vuzara ruled for another three centuries. In addition to an army of fire trolls and gnolls, she had a few red dragons. The hill and stone giants of the Sournbracks were her greatest foes. Many giant-built strongholds dot these mountains, with most built to defend against Vuzara's raiders. The reign of Vuzara ended when she was killed by a stone giant champion named Grazafar.

Witch Pipe has a lot of ruins on its outside and many labyrinths within it. Most of these were built during Vuzara's Reign (62 HG - 392 HG). These places are now the abodes of monsters and beasts with some of the higher ruins serving as aeries for chaos rocs, griffins, and dragons. The honeycomb of passages inside the volcano go all the way down into Phangul. They are the main reason why Theegans can be found pirating the waters of the Heliotrope Sea and living in the holds of the Underdark empire Gaereaus.

Locals say that Witch Pipe is cursed. This is because a number of liches have come to power in this volcano. Some are just a nuisance, but a few have been real problems for the region. In more recent times, two liches born to Vuzara's Curse joined up with the dragon cult at Phanaca.

Bingatho

Bingatho

Bingatho is one of the moons orbiting Marragh. It is a small habitable world, being only 1/20th the size of its parent. Bingatho is covered in jungles. It is a rainy, stormy place dotted with massive swamps and lakes and some few ridges and hilly ranges. Some of the more common things to encounter here are hydras, basilisk, displacer beasts, leucrotta, and similar terrors. The world is devoid of humanoid lifeforms, except possibly adventurers or those marooned here.

At the core of this moon is a trapped God of Creation. This being is who the moon is named after. Bingatho was a Tier 1 Creationist that worked with the same purpose of Io and others on the side of Law. They drew entropic energy from the Elemental Chaos and used it to create planes, worlds, and everything that goes in them. While Bingatho was creating Marragh's moon Githo, he was struck by psionic energy from within one of his conduits of creation. The psionic blast was so powerful that it made Bingatho lose his wits. Instead of making Githo diverse, he turned the entire moon into iron. On investigation, Io and Moradin found Bingatho to be insane and growing ever more chaotic. Bingatho followed the dictates of the Creationist Board of Inquiry and accepted imprisonment until a cure could be found for his mind and chaotic taint. Moradin and Io worked in concert building a moon, his prison, around Bingatho. They never found a cure but his chaotic taint did stop progressing once the moon bound him to its core. The mind blast that brain scrambled Bingatho came from a powerful psionic primordial named Nakh-Zennîm. Like other primordials, this being was intent on unmaking works of creation and returning it all to the Elemental Chaos.

In the Dawn War, the Anaz Rift was created by the primordial Beldileck. He did not use the rift as his skills were more suited for research and tinkering. It was instead used by Bryakus to invade Bal-Kriav from the area of Felbarum. The Anaz Rift is still open; serving as an inter-planar link between the world Bal-Kriav and this moon. The imprisoned Creationist serving as moon's core still carries on his works of creation. Bingatho no longer has the powers of a Tier 1 Creationist with his power having naturally degraded to that of a Tier 4 Creationist. The Anaz Rift gave him an avenue of spreading his creations to the world Bal-Kriav affecting areas like Goldarah and Turuk.

Ingu'lumin's Second Rift

Feeding Gunul-Birum

This rift was opened five months after the closure of Ingu'lumin's First Rift. Like the first, Ingu'lumin's Second Rift was created by a primordial disembodied thinker named Ingu'lumin. Unlike the first rift which was opened from the side of Elemental Chaos, the second was opened from the Prime, inside the mountain Gunul-Birum. A mountain soon turned volcano from the rift's opening. He opened the second rift on the Prime side because the volcano was once part of the Elemental Chaos, made of entropic matter and fed by entropic fire. Its natural entropy caused instability in the area's Web of Magic, thereby making it much harder for the Web's weave spiders to repair.

Due to Ingu'lumin's lack of experience, his second rift collapsed on its own accord. When this happened, it sucked most of the volcano back into the Elemental Chaos. This left in its wake the great sinkhole Zurukthûr. It also tainted the land around it, creating the desert Rukhs. The volcano Gunul-Birum has internal fires that come from an entropic core still linked to the Elemental Chaos. This link is a narrow channel where only enterprising fire mephits could hope to squeeze through, yet big enough and with such constant lava flow making Gunul-Birum an active volcano.

Bul

Bul Cambion

Lake Bul is sited in the northern reaches of the Khizunul mountains. Its shores are a hazardous place to travel and its depths far worse. This is because in the Demon Spawn War, it was stocked with specimens brought over from Abyss.

It is said that Yeenoghu had an insatiable desire for fish and other aquatic delicacies of his abyssal home plane. When his forces captured the area around lake Bul, he had minions stock the lake with abyssal specimens. As his forces faltered in the Demon Spawn War, they were forced to abandon the eastern tracts of the Clans and his favorite fishery. Some of the things his minions put in the lake were intelligent, like the dim-witted skulvyn. These bestial demons normally haunt the reeking seas of the Abyss. Some out of either lust or macabre mortal experiments, mated with gnolls and other mortal humanoids resulting in a population of aquatic cambions. These half-demons are perhaps the most dangerous foes of lake Bul and the area around it. Over the ages, some have cajoled gnoll tribes into paying tribute and even serving them. An order of demon hunters called the Khalag Narkûn are based out of Dul-Kiz. This organization was established to deal with Bul's demon problem.